


12 Days of Kylux

by AtlinMerrick



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Bookshop, Fake Dating, First Time, Holiday warm fuzzies!, Kids/family, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Soulmates, accidental voyeur/spying, benarmie, coffeeshop, enemies or friends to lovers, pet play/anthropomorphism, pirates/tentacles, tropes!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-09-21 05:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: Twelve Kylux tales with common tropes from coffeeshop AU—squee!—to fake dating. Also doingClydelandandTechienician.Kids





	1. Blooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve Kylux tales with common tropes from coffeeshop AU—squee!—to fake dating. Also doing [Clydeland](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037689/chapters/40058327) and [Techienician](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043248/chapters/40071740).
> 
> _Kids_

Kylo Ren wriggled _up_ the bed.

"You're joking," said Armitage Hux.

Kylo wriggled _down_ the bed.

"Nope, not joking."

Hux lifted his knees. Kylo wedged his right on under.

"You were _there,_ at the gem gardens? _"_

Kylo shifted his shoulders left.

"Yep. The day the jewel buds bloomed."

Kylo shifted his shoulders right.

"I was, too."

Hux lifted his left arm. Kylo wriggled right under.

"We might have met," Hux whispered.

Kylo snuffled.

"I'd remember."

Kylo sniffled.

"We were only tiny Ky, five or six."

Hux turned a little. Kylo buried his cold nose in Hux's armpit.

"I'd remember with the Force."

Hux began to stroke Kylo's hair.

"The flowers looked like stained glass." Hux hadn't wanted to leave, not until every last bud had opened.

Kylo yawned. "I cried an' cried…when we left."

Hux remembers. The gardens had been silent as a sacred place, everyone whispering. But one little boy cried as if his heart were breaking.

Hux remembers standing on tip-toe and searching, his own eyes filling with tears. He remembers pat-patting his own chest and whispering _shhhhh shhhh._ He remembers that the crying had quieted.

Kylo snuffled and wriggled. He grunted and shrugged.

And Hux whispered _shhhh._

Kylo quieted. Kylo stilled. Kylo slept.

Hux doesn't need the Force. Not with Kylo.

_—  
Gonna write tiny Kylux tales for the 12 days of Christmas, with these tropes in this order: family/kids/mpreg; first time; coffeeshop; fake dating; sharing a bed; pirates/tentacles; enemies or friends to lovers; bookshop; arranged marriage; anthropomorphism; soulmates; accidental voyeur/spying. Feel free to prompt, like a_secret_scribbler did here!_


	2. The Day the Universe Changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [Pandalolli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandalolli/pseuds/Pandalolli)
> 
> Inspired so very much by Hydrajen's wonderful [Kylo Scissorhands](https://twitter.com/Hydrajen/status/1075491395027300353) artwork. Thank you Jen.  
>    
>  _First time / amnesia_

They tell Hux that he has made the man. "You did this."

Yeah, just like that, they say it. "He's yours."

Simple words. So, so simple to say.

_This creature with the scissors for hands is yours Armitage Hux._

Except Hux doesn't remember making him. Doesn't remember why he _would_ make him. Hux doesn't even know how you'd do something like this. How you'd cobble together a creature like this.

Yet apparently he did. The troopers who brought him to the door tell him he did. They tell him, too, when he asks, that after the First Order fell so did he, down down deep into madness or denial. Whatever it was, it was a place where General Armitage Hux disappeared so well that no one found him, not for awhile.

By the time the Resistance fell no one even cared to look.

And now Hux is back to himself in lots of ways, his memory filling in in bits and pieces as he lives his nice life on this nice planet. He remembers lots of things now, the death of Starkiller and Snoke and General Leia Organa.

They tell him what he doesn't remember, when he asks down at the cantina—they, they, they. "They" are thousands of troopers without armor, troopers who're just regular people now because everything they've all known has gone to rack and ruin and everything that was just isn't any more.

Because something somewhere pressed a reset button, changed everything. Now the worlds are…whatever this is. Low-tech? Mechanical?

No, that's wrong. Starships still follow star routes, but the ships can't reach lightspeed anymore. Distance matters now. People talk in measures solar not galactic. They talk about going from one planet to the other, not from one end of a galaxy to another.

Something pressed a reset button and now the galaxy is so much bigger than it was, and the lives they all live are so much smaller.

And Hux doesn't really remember how he got here, right here in this house. It doesn't matter.

He also doesn't remember making this man who stands before him with his big, sad eyes and his scars.

The troopers that aren't any more deliver him and walk off like ordinary women and men and the man steps through the door of Hux's small home and they just look at each other.

Hux doesn't remember all the droids he must have torn apart and pieced back together to make this mans legs and that right arm. He doesn't remember fashioning all those straps and buckles and leathers that he somehow knows hold together the scarred flesh beneath, hold the man so he doesn't spill his insides out in a mess of organs and viscera and—

"Why didn't I give you hands?" Hux asks the man and the man blinks sad eyes and says nothing.

"His name is Ben," said the troopers who delivered him, like a package, just as Keela's sun was peeping over all the tents going up for the winter festival. "He says he's yours. That you made him after everything changed."

Hux hadn't even thought to close the door and keep the creature out.

Everything's changed so much, ships don't go at lightspeed any more, there's no more Empire or Resistance or war or ambitions spanning galaxies so sure, why wouldn't this be real, too?

Hux may not remember parts of how he got here on this planet, in this city that teams with sentients he's sure he's never seen before, but he's here isn't he? His body is whole even if his memory isn't, and he was a genius once, he remembers that.

Remembers all the things he made, from lethal planets to better datapads, so why not a man made of droid parts?

Hux blinks at this Ben and something niggles at his brain.

He shakes his head and invites the man all the way in, bids him sit because…well, he's his and so he should make him comfortable, yes?

So Ben sits on Hux's sofa, a blue thing because Hux likes blue, he remembers that. Hux likes his work too, fixing things, datapads and farm droids and the occasional repurposed console taken off a decommissioned ship.

So of course he believes it, that this Ben is his and that he made him because, well, he can.

"Do you want something to drink?" Hux asks, wondering if the man can drink. Surely he can?

Ben nods and something niggles at Hux's brain again, something something, he knows there's something, but he goes and gets the drink anyway.

As he does, Hux doesn't realize that he's looking around his tiny house, looking for stuff that looks like _hands._ Because he's going to finish Ben, right? Surely he had meant to do that.

When he returns with the caf he pauses because…well.

He needn't have worried though. Turns out that Ben doesn't need hands to pick up the cup, he levitates it instead and that's when the niggling goes away and Hux remembers.

Everything.

Hux remembers _everything._

The ruin of the _Supremacy_ falling out of the sky, falling from space, crashing like so much junk on to the far side of this planet, this planet that's like so many others now, a graveyard of ships over which scavengers clamor and pull and grow rich.

They had fallen from the sky, he and this man and all their troops. It was like the galaxy had shrugged them off, cut planets off from each other just enough so that they couldn't wage their wars any more. So that worlds could no longer be harvested for kyber and gold and the makings for transparasteel.

Hux goes to his knees. He watches the creature put the caf on the floor gently, like it matters that he not spill, then Hux crawls to the sofa and puts his hands on the man's knees.

"Kylo," said Armitage Hux, remembering everything. "You died."

Something whirred and buzzed beneath black belts and buckles and leather and it took a moment for Hux to realize Kylo was laughing.

"Not all the way."

Kylo's eyes aren't sad any more, because he was smiling.

"They said you'd gone mad, that you didn't know who you were."

"I was. For awhile. I remember everything now. But I don't remember you."

Kylo blinks and his eyes are sorrowful again so Hux talks fast. "No, I remember us, I remember love. We went down with the ship together and we thought we'd burn but we didn't. I remember the crash but after that, it was only little bits and pieces. For a long time."

Hux can feel cold metal beneath the leather beneath his hands, but he can feel the blood warmth of flesh in Kylo's legs too.

"But I don't remember making you. They say I did."

Hux dances fingers over thighs and calves and forearms, over man and metal. "I honestly don't remember doing this."

Kylo bends at the waist, until his hair falls around Hux's upturned face. He curls his hodge podge body over Hux and kisses his cheeks and his neck and he breathes deep and easy and says, "You didn't."

Hux kisses back soft and murmurs, "They said I did."

"Cause I told them you did. Simple minds are easy to trick with the Force."

Hux runs gentle hands over the scissors at the ends of Kylo's arms. He's pretty sure he has hands somewhere in his workshop. No, he knows he does. A couple metal ones with a Human's five fingers, a plasteel one with a Keelan's seven.

"I made me."

Hux understands and doesn't want to. He doesn't want Kylo to say more, because somehow it's worse to know what he knows with just those three words.

That Kylo, bloody and ruined, but Force-blessed and so in some weird way too strong to die, that Kylo built himself from scraps. That underneath the belts and the buckles and the leather, his body is made of bone and metal, that he did all this so that he could, so he could…

"…find you."

Hux is sitting on the floor at Kylo's feet and everything in the galaxy has changed. Their worlds are slower now and quieter and there's peace.

And with all of that change this didn't, this is the same, eternal: Kylo wants to be with him and he with Kylo.

Hux is on his knees and looking up and whispering soft he says, "The winter festival." He takes careful hold of a scissor's blade. "I think we can get some hands on your by then, yes?"

Kylo smiles.

Hux kisses each and every one of his true love's sharp, sharp blades and he thinks about what he'll wear at the winter dance. Something in white Keelan silk probably. It'll look lovely against Kylo's black leathers.

—  
_With thanks to Hydrajen who drew[this drawing](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/181260203459/is-there-already-a-ben-solo-scissorhandsau) and said she wished someone would write a story for it. So I did, one full of angst and change and then the one thing that does not change—love. Thank you Jen!_


	3. Maneuvers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unless Armitage Hux does something _right now_ this entire operation is going all to hell.
> 
> _Coffeeshop_

Armitage Hux stills.

Back against the far wall he scans the room slowly. Civilians gather in discrete clusters throughout the small space. He ignores most of them; they're easy to control. But there's always outliers, rogues he can't account for, and today they form a blockage by the double door. He'll have to take them out if he wants the operation to go smoothly.

As his brain ticks through possible maneuvers Hux notes movement in his peripheral vision.

"Armitage."

He turns to find the commanding, broad-shouldered bulk of his boss. She looks at him; he at her. He holds her gaze and after a moment she nods. She knows what's going down.

Hux turns back to the crowded room in time to watch a cluster surge, then break apart. Voices raise. His hackles do, too. He can't afford a fight, it would throw the entire mission to hell.

Fortunately a sane mind prevails and whoever was kicking off is quickly hushed. But the entire group is growing restive now; possibly angry. It's happened before. People don't do well packed together like this, unsure of how long they'll wait, never patient at the best of times and high noon is never the best of times.

Speaking of time, Hux doesn't have much more of it. The boss wants him to calm the civvies but he _has_ to hold his corner, he has to—

There!

Movement outside and Hux finally catches sight of his target. He's very late today; he rarely is. Again clusters break apart and reform, two voices raise in frustration.

"Armitage," says the boss again, authoritative. Around her underlings scurry, Dopheld, Rey, Poe. He knows he won't do the team any good back there, he has to do something out here where the crowd is restive.

And there's still that blockage at the door. The target will never make it through. Hux has an idea. It'll help the team and get him close to his quarry.

Pushing away from the wall, Hux stands on the stool at his back. Reaching into the last in a row of cabinets, Armitage pulls out a box.

Jumping down he thuds the box onto the stool— _mine,_ the sound booms, _my stool, no touchy_ —and Hux pulls out a sleeve of takeaway espresso cups. He fashions an impromptu serving tray with the box lid, lines up a regiment of fifty tiny cups quick-smart. Reaching behind the counter he raids the cold case for a few hipster-compliant juices. Chai berry cinnamon and peach green tea acai, thick, almost syrupy beverages that cost nearly a sawbuck.

He decants them, then starts infiltrating the caffeine-hungry crowd, offering the freebie drinks. The crowd calms. Hux makes it to the front door at the same time his target does.

The man steps into the cafe and balks at the roiling mass of people. Hux smiles in a way he hopes is casual, cool, and low-key. Instead he looks deranged and giddy as always, and murmurs, "Saved your seat," like it's no biggie. He chin points to the far corner. "Just put the box on the floor."

Ben Amidala grins at Armitage in a way he hopes is casual, cool, and low-key. It's all of those. Hux nearly has a delight coronary.

"Bug juice or jackroller?"

Hux isn't sure why he uses made-up military slang for Ben's usuals, but Ben seems to like it and Hux always feels like they're some two-person alliance in the middle of a war.

"Bug juice please, Armitage."

Hux nods, besotted, then watches Ben press through the noon crush of caffeine-deprived customers, toward the only free seat in the house. He runs interference with the free drinks until he's made it back behind the cafe counter.

There Armitage moves between his workmates like oil through gears, staying out of their way while still making a perfect Americano. He places it before Ben as if before royalty. He even sketches a bow.

Ben gives him that princely grin again and Hux has more joy palpitations. And also customers. He goes back to serving, barely notices the double dozen drinks he makes until—

"What?"

Ben repeats, "See you next time," smiling until he's snaggle toothed and crinkle eyed. Armitage blink-blinks and then nods, double-shot extra-hot besotted. He watches Ben head toward the door, a path clearing before him. Royalty indeed.

Once on the other side of the glass, Ben sketches him a salute, then disappears around a corner.

Armitage meeps softly and suddenly that's it. He's had all he can take. It's been months. Small exchanges. Dead-time talks. He has to do it. It's time. He's going to ask Ben out. Soon. Pretty soon. Courage soon.

Except.

Except Armitage Hux is a skinny barista working in the only cafe in this business park, and Ben Amidala's middle management at a tech firm. They're from entirely different worlds.

Armitage Hux blink-blinks at the spot he last saw Ben. He remembers that smile, that salute and…and Armitage Hux stands tall, shoulders back. He smoothes his hair and raises his chin. Yes they're from different worlds, but they share _this one,_ at Finalizer Food & Drink.

He'll do it. He will. With a decisive nod Hux reaches for Ben's empty cup and—

—there's a Post-it note stuck to the side. It's…Ben's phone number. And email. And the time he gets off work tomorrow.

Armitage looks at the place where he last saw that smile, that salute. They may be from different worlds, but their paths have crossed here. That has to mean something.

And hey. Doesn't a prince need a consort?

_—  
I find it fascinating the reality that Hux or Ben or anyone can only excel at something they were given the opportunity to do. Hux would be a great general, Ben a perfect prince…but only if life worked out that way for them. This time it worked out that they're gonna have a nice, regular, happy life. No wars._


	4. Dream a Little Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Armitage Hux's odd dreams predict the future... 
> 
> _Fake dating / bed sharing_

Hux dreams.

They are often portentous.

A half dozen years ago, for example, Armitage Hux dreamt he won a beauty contest. There he was, parading around on stage in six-inch red pumps and tiny black panties with white stripes at the sides. In the dream he'd given a long and shouty speech of acceptance and cried fetchingly.

The next day Hux made general.

(This explained the rank stripes on Hux's dream panties and the fact that after he was given his stripes he may or may not have cried a tiny bit in his quarters under the blankets with a pillow over his head.)

Five year ago he'd dreamt he was a Berea snow stork flapping and soaring over a vast and mountainous land, landing only when he found the perfect high place upon which to build a nest. There Armitage laid an egg in a shouty sort of way and sat upon it.

The next day his blueprints for Starkiller were approved.

(It's fairly clear that he was the stork, giving birth to his planet destroying egg. In the snow. Loudly.)

A year ago Hux dreamt himself back on that beauty contest stage, only this time his panties exploded and he spent a lot of time stamping his red pumps and shouting, "Not fair not fair not fair!"

The next day Starkiller was blown up. Which was entirely _not fair._

(Yes his panties were Starkiller and really nothing was fair. Blah blah blah.)

Six months ago Hux dreamt he was a stylus clutched in Kylo Ren's massive paw as the supreme leader signed a pile of flimsis that reached to the Finalizer's rafters.

When Armitage woke the ceasefire had been called and the Second Galactic Concordance was proposed.

(Well, that dream was rather a little on the nose.)

Now though.

 _Now_ Armitage Hux was in a strange bed, on a strange planet, passed out cold with exhaustion and he was dreaming again.

The trip to the Ado Sector had been long, the conference he and Kylo had immediately attended even longer, then there'd been the snafu once they'd been shown to their quarters, because no one—despite the aid of three protocol droids, a great many hand signs, and talking very, very slowly—in Prince Yee's palace seemed to understand that General Armitage Hux and Supreme Leader Kylo Ren were not in an intimate relationship.

But fine.

_Fine._

In the name of getting _some_ pfassking rest before the _next_ twelve hour conference, he and Kylo pretended they were married, changed into their pajamas and……good lord Hux didn't understand how Kylo called _that_ pajamas. A regular person would call it a loincloth and even that would be erring on the side of grandiosity.

But anyway.

_Anyway._

After all that, after the long trip, the lengthy meeting, the mind-boggling misunderstanding, the absurd scrap masquerading as pajamas, Armitage had been sure he would not dream because he _never_ dreams when he's stressed, annoyed, embarrassed, shocked, harassed, confused, aggrieved, frustrated, horny, in denial, or sublimating.

Well. Hux was certainly dreaming _now._

Pipecleaner limbs starfished across the _one_ bed, eyes dancing beneath lids, Armitage dreamt and dreamt and dreamt.

In this particular dream he was a Maramere winter moth, white wings gossamer as moonshine. He hovered over a cocoon bright as an orange sun and, in the way of dreams, Hux knew he'd weaved that cocoon from his own fine hair, strand after shining strand woven into a snug-tight haven for the creature inside.

A creature busy being born.

Dream Hux was ready.

The chrysalis formed a dozen cracks all at once, as if it were impossible for the life inside to be contained a moment longer. Within seconds the shell scattered to the winds and from it fell a crumple-winged moth, wet and weak.

With the certainty of instinct Armitage came close and with his moon moth wings he fanned at the just-born creature until his own wings unfurled and filled and filled and…oh great maker. The moth was massive, black, _beautiful._

When Hux woke Kylo Ren's face was a hand's width from his face. The tangle of his wild black hair did not hide his wide, soft eyes.

With the certainty of instinct Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren closed the distance between them, mouth finding mouth. Then tongue finding bum. Then cock finding mouth. Then hand finding bum. Then tongue finding hand. Then about eighteen other things until they were late for the conference.

(Right, so obvious dream is obvious.)

_—  
The idea of Hux dreaming he is a moth, making a cocoon, Kylo…it just popped into my head. No idea why. Also, yes, I'm starting to combine prompts otherwise I'll be here until next Christmas finishing these. Here is what I think of as Hux, the [Maramere winter moth](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/c8/60/efc860f2cdd93baab00b4e093c03fc0b.jpg), and the [Kylo moth](https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4670/39140890154_a94d2f7789_b.jpg)._


	5. Fucking Finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bookshop_
> 
> Armitage Hux can not take Ben Organa any more.
> 
> Maz Kanata thinks that he can and she's prepared to prove it one damned pastry at a time.

"I can't take it any more Maz."

Armitage Hux could not take it any more.

"I know that, objectively, it's not even a thing."

Even so, somehow for Ari it was A Thing.

"And no, I'm not flying off the handle."

Armitage was totally Flying Off the Handle about this thing that was definitely A Thing and damn Maz for making it so even _he_ hears the caps.

"It's just that the giant man keeps doing it, he keeps leaving books everywhere."

No, that wasn't right. Ben only ever failed to reshelve one book. Just one. Every night. As if he could do ninety-nine point nine percent of his job at A Force for Good, but that final tenth remained stubbornly elusive.

"I know I should have said something at the start."

That first time it happened, Armitage had just shelved the book himself. It was easy peasy as the self-help shelves are near the front of the bookshop, right by the registers. Americans are all about self-help.

But then there was a second time, a fourth, and by the seventh Armitage was complaining to Maz who'd told him he was the best manager her shop had ever had and she'd "gladly fire the big lummox if you like."

It turns out Ari had very much not liked.

"I know I said I'd handle it myself."

He had said that. After Maz made the offer. To fire Ben. He'd declined her offer, made over a coffee and scone, and then he'd gone to work for his usual afternoon to evening shift. Ben was there early like he always was, and he was smiling that ridiculous smile, like he always did. And for a split second Armitage was bolstered by Maz's support and stomped up close to the big annoying beauty, looked him in the eye and—

"The thing is…he smells so good. His cologne or. Something. I got. Distracted."

Ari shook his head and looked at the remnants of today's pastry. It had been one of those lovely cinnamon things. Maz had ordered her usual huge and squishy snowball thing and made obscene sounds while eating it.

"Which is stupid. I'm stupid. I know this is absurd, I just…Maz I just want to know why he won't put away one single book, you know?"

Armitage poked at the crumbs of Maz's pastry. It had been seriously huge. Half her weight at least. Somehow she always finishes them.

"If it's not _Dating for Dummies_ it's _Overcoming Shyness._ If it's not _The Body Language of Love_ it's _How to Ask a Man Out Without Asking._

"At least this week he broadened out of self-help. Yesterday it was _The Fae: Recognising the Spirits Among Us_ and the day before it was _A History of Redheads._ He's got black hair Maz! I almost asked him why he—"

Maz didn't even jump when Armitage dropped his fork. She didn't sigh, roll her eyes, or say _Holy shit finally._ No, Maz Kanata just gave Phasma the thumbs up and glanced at her watch.

It wasn't even three pm. Ben would still be at work. The only reason Armitage wasn't was because she'd asked him to pop by Phasma's cafe on his way in. Damn it she was going to help him figure this out even if she had to put on ten snowball-related pounds to do it.

"I. Am. An. Idiot." The plates jumped each time Armitage banged his head on the table. "He's…I've…I just didn't think someone like him would even notice someone like…but it doesn't…and I. Maaaaz. I'm his _manager."_

Ah, there was that small problem. A Force for Good's owner gazed at the cafe's ceiling a bit, then at the hair part of her best employee for a bit. Then she said, "I'm promoting him. He's now your co-manager."

Armitage sat bolt upright. For a long moment his expression was blank. Then for another he blink-blinked fast. Finally, Armitage Hux beamed, stood up, and dashed out the door.

Maz watched him run across the road and into the bright interior of the bookshop. She took off her glasses and fished a bigger, thicker pair out of her pocket. Ah, there they were, by the self-help books. Standing close. Close enough to smell one another's cologne or. Something.

"He twigged at last." Phasma looked away from bright bookstore windows, sat across from Maz and placed a snowball on the table between them. "Fucking _finally."_

They dug into the pastry.

—  
_I've used this same theme—one man wooing another with the titles of the books he chooses—for a[Techienician story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043248/chapters/41521325) and a [Clydeland story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037689/chapters/41260721), as well! P.S. I've decided this is [the snowball](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/183083166329/fic-fucking-finally-bookshop-armitage-hux-can-not)._


	6. Wedding Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Arranged Marriage_
> 
> Armitage Hux has dreamt about this since the day Ben moved in...

"What should we wear?"

Ben yawned and stretched. Currently he was fashionably attired in dried come and crumpled sheet. Grinning up at his one true and naked love he gestured to wrinkled track pants lying on the floor.

"Really, Ben? _Really?"_

"Mmm, no good?"

"For a day of yard work, no, for a wedding, yes."

Oh good lord. "Baby? Darling? My sweet string of ginger licorice? It's not a wedding."

Armitage Baby Darling Hux took a deep breath. This had the effect of making him appear taller, thinner, and spiky.

"It is."

"It isn't."

Another deep breath.

"It _is."_

Ben gave in because he was 1) always going to give in anyway and 2) if Ari got any more bristly he'd put someone's eye out. "Fine. What do we wear to this wedding?"

Forty-five minutes later they stood before an official, signing a stack of paperwork. Ben was attired in a sheer black lace t-shirt, black jeans and boots, and enough woven bracelets on each arm to craft a small escape ladder should the need arise. Armitage wore a black mock turtleneck, black leggings, and black slip-ons. He looked like a red-haired Audrey Hepburn.

Ben was unsure what made these wedding clothes but, since he got to daydream about Hux doing Hepburn's bohemian dance, he did not much care. Instead he did as he was told.

"Here, sir. Also here. Here as well. Then initial the next six pages."

As Ben flourished his signature all over everything, Hux went through a dozen tissues. By the time he'd completed the paperwork, shit suddenly got real and Ben was crying, too.

"Ready?" asked the official.

Wrestling a tissue out of Hux's shaking fist, Ben blew his nose, wiped his eyes and nodded in synch with his sweetie. Then, hand-in-hand, they followed the official.

*

"Happy my love?"

Ben sighed dozy eyes open, blinked at the bedroom ceiling. He turned and beamed at Armitage. "Yeah. Are you?"

Armitage weaved their fingers tight together, kissed Ben's knuckles. "Perfectly."

Both men began to buzz.

"Ooo, baby girl is awake!" Armitage made infantile mouth noises at the ginger cat curled on his chest. "Are you in love baby girl? Are you?"

In reply Millicent yawned, then slow-blinked at the black cat on Ben's chest.

Mairwen slow-blinked back. As fingers wriggled deep into her thick fur, Mairwen draped a fluffy tail over her ginger wife's nose and loudly buzzed the room to sleep.

—  
_Of course the new cat is black to Millie's red. Of course she is. P.S. The wedding feast was lobster, caviar, and salmon. Armitage and Ben had wine. P.P.S. Here's the Bohemian dance Ben imagine's[Hux doing](https://youtu.be/7FznWwWrOIQ?t=197)._


	7. Perfume

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Animals / Anthroporphism_
> 
> Armitage Hux knows that the Human animal is capable of detecting over a trillion scents…

Armitage Hux smells him.

From the other side of the table during diplomatic talks, comes the scent of his knight. Not a perfume, nor cologne, it must be something Kylo is wearing to…intimidate? Entice?

From the cagey squint of the Resistance general and the waving of the Andelorian senator's six talking tentacles, it's hard for Hux to tell if that dark scent is doing either one.

All Hux knows right now is that _he_ knows Kylo's wearing something sour, sweet, _strong,_ and it's muddling his mind. Could the Force have a fragrance he wonders, then nearly laughs. Instead Hux just…resolves to ignore the black-clad giant roaming the room's shadows and he squints right back at the general, while asking the senator to say that again please.

Later it gets worse and by worse Hux means richer, deeper, and much, much better.

For all a the sterility of a star destroyer's durasteel walls and plasteel windows, Hux knows his ship is full of animals. Especially sloppy Human ones with mouths full of spit and breath, pores prone to nervous sweats, and skin to which thousands of scents cling. Hux knows too that a Human is capable of detecting over a trillion of them.

So after the departure of the envoys and the senators, after Armitage has filed his reports and finished his shift, he goes to their quarters.

And Kylo isn't there.

_Kylo isn't there?_

After making nice at meetings, the First Order's supreme leader always returns to their quarters, desperate to "sonic off the stink of politics and lies." Countless times Hux has found him starfished naked on their bed, comforting himself with a saber-and-sorcery holo or dozing while he waits for Hux.

Armitage looks at their droid-made bed and for a moment he remembers when that bed meant nothing to him.

It was too big, too soft, too lonely. He avoided sleeping because he woke tired anyway. Then came Kylo. Quite literally.

On Hux's belly, in his mouth, between his thighs, in his ass. From years of obstructionist bickering to lovers virtually overnight, Hux is still shocked to look at that bed now and see comfort, a refuge, a place for pleasure.

Back in the corridor quick-smart he asks "Where are you?" to the empty hall because, like sleeping, talking to himself is another thing Hux now does.

Except he's not talking to himself. Though Kylo can hear him if he just _thinks,_ Hux isn't like that. He wants to see things, hear them, he wants to touch and taste. Kylo used to think Hux hated the Force but that's the wrong word for it.

Armitage Hux is an engineer at heart and finds comfort in things that show their workings. Gears meshing, console diodes burning bright, Hux likes the sting of steam rising from a caf cup, or the prick of claws when Millicent jumps from his lap.

The Force though, is silent, invisible, it's nowhere and everywhere, and so when he can, Hux makes it manifest by _talking._ From the bridge he'll chat as Kylo approaches the Finalizer in his TIE. In a strange bed in a palace parsecs away, he'll holds his own hand tight so Kylo feels the phantom touch. And with the hocus pocus of his old religion Kylo answers ever in kind, like now, right now, whispering into Hux's ear and filling his nose with richer, deeper, much, much _better._

"I can smell you," Hux says and doesn't care that two troopers freeze guiltily in the corridor, moving again only once their grand marshal sails by.

Armitage _can_ smell Kylo, that scent from the conference room, a perfect reek he wants on his skin and hair, under his nails and—

"Where are you?"

—but Hux knows where to find Kylo now, he feels a phantom tickle down the back of his neck. His knight is in the humid heat of the hydroponics garden.

He's already talking minutes later, as he climbs the gantry over the regimented plant rows, low light and mist softening the edges of everything.

"—distracting everyone with the kriffing smell of you."

He doesn't wait for a reply, instead he gets skin-close, nose pressing against Kylo's sweaty neck close, and _sniffs,_ loud, long, and lung-filling.

"Only for you," Kylo says, tugging down the collar of his tunic.

Armitage knows he's right, which makes it all much, much better. Because then this _smell_ affects just them, two animals in rut in the middle of ship's night. Hux tugs and gropes until he's got Kylo's long robes bunches up over his arm, then wriggles his hand into Kylo's leggings. There's nothing but skin against his palm so he cups firm-soft, then drags his hand up through rough curls, still coarse with their combined come from last night.

Then he smears the scent of them across Kylo's mouth, pushes his tongue in right after.

This, this, _this_ is what distracted him in that conference room. Not a cologne or some Force hocus pocus, it was the animal scent of _them_ on his lover's unwashed body.

Kylo licks the underside of Hux's tongue, which tastes faintly of sweet Andelorian biscuits, then stumbles a little when Armitage pushes him against the gantry railing, and this, this, _this_ is one of Hux's weaknesses. He croons into Kylo's mouth because this mountain lets him _move_ him, push and pull, take and give. Hux is whipweed thin, but even a monolith can be overtaken by the tenacity of weeds.

"Yes," Kylo smiles, nodding. They _are_ those things yes, but they're nothing at all like them. Because a mountain can't unlatch a tunic and tug down trousers, and whipweed can't laugh when it's lifted and sat gently on a gantry railing a half dozen meters over rows of dust-corn and manak leaf.

Hux's laughter stutter-stops when Kylo pulls off his robes and his cock is still out, leggings bunched under his balls, right where Hux left them.

Before he can moan at _that_ beauty, Kylo's got them both in one big hand and instead Hux is giggling at the sweat of them providing lube for the slick-slide of dicks and balls growing hard against each other.

It should be a bit much, the remnants of dried come on Kylo's stomach, it should be a bit much the reek from unwashed armpits and ass, but instead it's as right as the mist pearling on the Kibla greens and marsh fruit below, it's animals marking each other, and the—

—thought is much more than enough to make Hux come. He fists his hands in the flesh of Kylo's shoulders and he'll whisper apologies against the scratches later but it's one, two, three then four seconds later that Kylo feels it, the sting of being marked and that's what doubles him over, forehead pressed to the skin of Hux's fever-warm chest.

*

The bridge crew this morning: Unamo, Mitaka, B'ue and Thanisson? Nothing. The Vohai envoy and her consorts, the Shiffrins and Ardans now…nothing.

Sitting straight backed at the Ardanian treaty table in grand marshal whites, Armitage Hux looks at the assembled officers and strokes his short beard, for all the world a patient First Order politician waiting for a meeting to come to order.

Lightyears distant one man knows better.

While the Finalizer waits for the return of one of her co-commanders, the other waits in their quarters. Starfished naked across their bed Kylo Ren lets their Force connection flow and he knows those gloved fingers stroking red hair have nothing to do with serenity and everything to do with getting leather up near a nose where—

Hux breathes deep.

—he can smell dried sweat from between Kylo's legs, from his armpits, were he can rub his hand over moustache and mouth, secretly lick at the leather and wonder again that no one else smells this.

Strong as a perfume it is, the shameless stink of them on his gloves, between his legs, on his belly, that perfume is a vow that they _are_ a them, us, they are we, together, bonded, mated, a pair.

Whatever the resolution of these endless talks across an endless galaxy, whether there be unity, peace, and order across its thousands of planets, Hux knows that forever there is this.

"Us," he says softly and knows he's heard, lightyears distant.

It's enough. More than.

—  
_Ha! I had this partially written before The Great Trailer Unveiling of our beautiful, dirty boi and so of course I had to finish this. And guess what: Humans really_ can _smell[a trillion](https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/incredible-facts-about-your-sense-smell/) different scents, and in other news I heart Wookieepedia so very much._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/atlinmerrick) and would shout pretty giddy-loud if you said hello.


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